I think too many times when we start discussing the way it used to be... "When I was young..." we forget exactly how things were and how much less information was available. The racial atmosphere alone in our country within my lifetime has changed dramatically, the abuse of children has changed from the "beat them to they learn" mentality of the older generations (not to mention sanctioned abuse at schools), and the violence as well as the attitude towards women has improved. How many things did happen and went unreported? Can we say that the nation heard (sitting at their couches) about every lynching that took place in the 50s and 60s? Psychotic behavior I'm afraid, is due to a certain percentile of psychopaths and any increase in population would proportionally increase both psychopaths and victims unless we proactively address this illness. The argument of modern society and the acceptance (NO, insistence!) on violence as a pastime, does have a desensitizing affect which hinders change/repair and mis-educates. I saw that very clearly when some of our Vets (mental illness - unchecked/untreated) started to live on the streets and subways of NYC. At first, there was an apparent reaction from the occasional pedestrian (and an outcry was heard) but soon even they, due to inaction and familiarity, developed callus on their eyes and stepped over the bodies and the cardboard homes.That said and agreed upon, we also have to address the availability of weapon systems that can kill masses so easily and so quickly. As a modern society we have to consider that holding on to the past, where many Americans lived in the wilderness and had a need for firearms (as a tool) is not sensible. The rhetorical arguments based on pride, and history, (many of which are fueled and supported by the Arms industry), are outweighed by just one child in just one incident.

relay wrote:The argument of modern society and the acceptance (NO, insistence!) on violence as a pastime, does have a desensitizing affect which hinders change/repair and mis-educates.

I find this article well sourced and well written.This one's pretty well written too.One of the things I keep thinking over is a quote from some author that Joseph Campbell repeated in one of his talks, namely that one of the signs of the collapse of a society is a pre-occupation with violence that even takes over all forms of entertainment.

I think as a community we're going to need to push the message that violence, especially lethal violence, is not okay.

Thanks for both articles; the first one was not only well written, but also quite sobering - "America has lost the formative culture that would allow us to contest, challenge and transform the prevailing culture of unbridled individualism, consumerism, militarism and desire for instant pleasure."The second article is where our voices need to gather. It is unlikely that just waiting for the "answer" or expecting some evolved altruistic feature to "turn on" will yield much against this present Über-individualism at all cost momentum.

“Biology holds us "on a leash" and will let us stray only so far from who we are. We can design our life any way we want, but whether we will thrive depends on how well the life fits human predispositions."~ Edward Wilson

peace,Gabe

"We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.” ~Chögyam Trungpa

I don't think gun control will solve the issue entirely, but it's hard to argue against a causal link between the avaibility of semi-automatic rifles one step or so down from military use and the scale of these tragedies, you cannot as easily massacre 26 people with only one 9mm handgun or something. I know there have been tragedies where someone has essentially done this..but the fact of the matter is the insane level of availability and range of firearms in the US has contributed to scale of many of these crimes.

I do think that ultimately it is our culture which is causing these things to happen with such frequency, it's just that the availability of weapons that really have no reasonable use in the hands of civilians ups the scale of such tragedies tremendously.

I have no idea why people here are so freaked out about the idea of any gun control at all, I mean we are so over armed here it's freaking ridiculous. I generally consider myself pretty libertarian on these issues, but seriously the blind arguments from groups like the NRA are making me move in the other direction..whatever the "root cause", it defies logic to claim that availability of weapons doesn't play a part here.

Would these same people make the same arguments if someone decided to open a store that sold landmines? "Landmines don't kill people, people kill people".

I think it's less about loss of the nuclear family (good riddance was just a mirage anyway), and more about the loss of ANY sense of community, and a crazily competitive society that with each passing year puts more and more emphasis on things like accumulation of wealth and status, and less and less on compassion and direct interaction with other humans..in fact you could almost say that in some places compassion in America is viewed as weakness today. But maybe that's just me.

Also, it's true people always had guns in the past, but they did not have easy access of the kind that exists today.

Johnny Dangerous wrote:I have no idea why people here are so freaked out about the idea of any gun control at all, I mean we are so over armed here it's freaking ridiculous.

I'm not freaked out, I'm just tired of knee jerk legislation coming about and then everyone thinking the problem's just magically going to go away.There have been a lot of gun control laws that were passed in the past with absolutely no intention of them being enforced.

Would these same people make the same arguments if someone decided to open a store that sold landmines? "Landmines don't kill people, people kill people".

Kind of a straw man don'tcha think?Land mines have a rather limited capacity for use as defense of a residence...

Also, it's true people always had guns in the past, but they did not have easy access of the kind that exists today.

Actually it was easier.The Brady Bill and other legislation made it harder.There was a time when you could walk into any Walmart and walk out of the store with a gun, no waiting period or background check.

Then again, back in the day it was a big deal to see blood on TV & it always looked fake. You didn't have super-gory special effects showing every piece of brain matter getting blown out of the bad guy's skull in some zombie movie on tv.You didn't have first person shooters with realistic death physics.There've been some pretty conclusive studies to show that people get desensitized to violence after long exposure to these things.

in fact you could almost say that in some places compassion in America is viewed as weakness today.

This statement is telling and accurate. And I don't think it is the case only in America.

In order to ensure my mind never comes under the power of the self-cherishing attitude,I must obtain control over my own mind. Therefore, amongst all empowerments, the empowerment that gives me control over my mind is the best,and I have received the most profound empowerment with this teaching.-Atisha Dipamkarabrtsal ba'i bkhra drin

Kind of a straw man don'tcha think?Land mines have a rather limited capacity for use as defense of a residence...

It's an analogy, not a straw man.

And neither do semi automatic rifles have any justifiable capacity for self defense, some of the weapons being used in these sorts of shootings have about as must sense in someone's home for defense as a landmine would. I'm all for the ability of people to own firearms for self defense, but there needs to be a limit, crazy ass people stockpiling stuff that is practically just military hardware dumbed down for civilian use has pretty obvious repercussions, so it's not as if advocating some form of gun control means trying to take away all guns - pretty much impossible here what with us swimming in them.

Again, i'm not advocating a purely legislative solution, i'm simply stating that those claiming that the availability of things like semi auto rifles one step down from military use have nothing to do with the scope of these shooting have an untrue argument, and I feel it's self-evident. There is a clear causal link between the capability of the weapons being used and the death toll, I have no idea how anyone can skip over this fact.

You really think something like the rifle used in this latest attack was as easily available to your average American 50 years ago? That strikes me as simply untrue, on a variety of levels - the simplest being internet shopping and research capabilities.

So if media violence is really the problem, do you think we should just legislate that instead, or is the solution elsewhere? Aren't you do essentially the same thing as the gun control hand-wringers by assuming that it's just consumption of media driving this?

There are a ridiculous amount of guns in this country man, there is no legitimate justification for it, I don't claim legislation would fix everything, only again stating the extremely obvious fact that availability and ease of purchase of some of this stuff contributes to the death toll - do you have a counter argument to that claim?

I can't stand studies like that one, all they prove is that thinking about stuff changes how you think about stuff - not that there is a direct causal link between video games and violence - though I don't doubt the possibility per se. They don't tell you anything at all about the volitional activities of the brains being supposedly "changed" by the video games, and such can't tell you a whole lot about whether or not they play a direct role.

Also on Anders Breivik since it's mentioned in the article - all you need to do is read a bit of his manifesto to see the hateful, crazy ideology that fueled what he did, the idea that it was linked to video games is laughable at best.

“Look down at me and you see a fool, look up at me and you see a god, look straight at me and you see yourself”

-Charles Manson

I've been reading about the shooter. He had never had any close friends. No girlfriends. Everyone ignored him. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. If he was lucky, people would notice him enough to bully him. No one liked or loved him, not even his family.

Can you imagine how it feels?

To be denied the right to exist?

I recommend reading Healing the Shame that Binds you. His rage, self-hatred, and shame build up during the decades until one day he snapped and decided to make everyone suffer like he suffered. At any time he could have been derailed by love.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

“Look down at me and you see a fool, look up at me and you see a god, look straight at me and you see yourself”

-Charles Manson

I've been reading about the shooter. He had never had any close friends. No girlfriends. Everyone ignored him. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. If he was lucky, people would notice him enough to bully him. No one liked or loved him, not even his family.

Can you imagine how it feels?

To be denied the right to exist?

I recommend reading Healing the Shame that Binds you. His rage, self-hatred, and shame build up during the decades until one day he snapped and decided to make everyone suffer like he suffered. At any time he could have been derailed by love.

The majority of Americans just destroy themselves. It is still quite rare to be a mass murder, but self destruction is the national hobby. It is the social norm in the United States to be an addict to something or other, if someone is not overweight -- addicted to pleasure via food, then they are on drugs whether prescribed or otherwise, or perhaps they are shopping addicts always putting themselves into debt, or a television addict who spends more time in depicted reality, than its real counterpart or a video gaming addict. This is a nation of unhealthy addicts because we live surrogate lives centered on earning money and spending it. The lack of actually lived experiences connected to real natural processes consume and destroys us. We manifest this by destroying ourselves, and I think that is why dharma is so attractive to many here as an escapism -- so we can ignore what man-made institutions, technology, have done to us all. We forget that people came from nature, and belong to it. We seek to triumph against it, despite the costs.

Adam Lanza was a recluse, which is not very abnormal by American standards. Most Americans are very socially isolated: we don't talk to neighbors because we don't need them. Most who didn't move far from where they attended school, still have social networks centered mostly on ex-classmates, because it is hard for adult Americans to meet and get to know each other. The only socially acceptable places to socialize in our nation involve the serving of alcohol. Who are you going to meet there? Alcoholics, or the people who feel they cannot be with more than two adults in a social setting without a drink -- whom we euphemistically call social drinkers -- when their behavior is anti-social. And what benefit is repeated and constant contact with such people anyway? But being a recluse is no good for your psychic well-being. You just pen up so much emotionality, you feel so ignored, slighted, angry. It will cause you to explode one day. No most will not become a murderer, but they will likely harm themselves, perhaps by self mutational, or by getting so lost in drug addiction those who once knew them, don't any more, perhaps descend into insanity, or make themselves die sooner than they would otherwise via the fork, etc.

I wonder what I do in America still, I have thought of escaping constantly. An accident is when you think you will just fart but end up pooping your pants. A country does not become the mass murder capital of the world for no reason, and there are reasons. America is a not a nation, it is grinding stone where people lose their former ethnic identities and inherited culture, to adopt the commercial rituals that form what we consider today culture and custom. Take Christmas, many selfish Americans waste electricity for this stupid commercial joke of a holiday. Don't these jackasses know coal miners get black lung to procure that electricity, that they literally shorten their lives for that shitty job, that they don't want but there are no better jobs in coal regions? Don't they know that mostly poor people living near the coal plants have higher cancer clusters and also die sooner than otherwise? But they don't care and if you tell them, they get offended. Why? Because we are a hostile, selfish nation, everyone for himself and his family, against all. That is our national motto. We think we are discrete and separate and meant to compete with each other to the death in a contest to see who can consume more resources than the American next to him.

There is no such thing as an innocent American or an innocent American child, in my experience. We like to believe in that myth, but when a specialized caste of Americans in the military bully much the world, and another specialized caste in business suits at allegedly multi-lateral institutions like the World Bank, IMF use debt peonage to further imperialist goals, we are all dirty unless we have actively fought against it at the cost of years in jail. But we don't risk anything against such injustice, because we all benefit from it, that is why within five miles of my house, in a country with already oversized houses by global standards, there are at least five storage rental facilities that the American people can dump the seized war booty into. Did the children eat meat because that is what their parents fed them? If so animals died so they could live. Did they consume resources produced by slaves? In Bangladesh where much of our clothing is produced, there was a fire that killed 118 workers producing garments for Walmart. Management locked them in and prevented them from evacuating immediately when it was first detected. Many of those on the upper stories jumped to their deaths to not be consumed by the flames. How many people need to die to and be oppressed thousands of miles away so American children can consume great resources via their share of such surplus labor? Why are the fewer Americans victimized by their own inhuman social order which produces psychopaths at a greater pace than the rest of the world so deserving of attention lavished and the much more innocent garment workers in Bangladesh only worthy of being ignored? Yet those dead proles are why unlike our 20th Century counterparts, we don't mend tattered clothing, we just dispose of it, because it is considered too cheap. They pay for that cheapness with their life energy, and they die sooner than they otherwise would have from working unimaginable hours, yet they still struggle just to pay to live.

Also Adam Lanza is very likely to have been on some kind of psychiatric medications or dealing with their withdrawal like most recent American mass murderers given his autism and other psychiatric diagnosis. Many of those medications have the known effect of increasing suicidal and homicidal ideation. I am gonna get alot of enemies likely for this post, but I feel it all has to be said. I know in most locales Americans don't care about anyone around them the slightest, but when a media spectacle like this happens, an explosion of phoniness and fake brotherly or kind sentiments that are never acted upon always erupt. We make most the world suffer greatly to subsidize our lifestyle with their blood, that anyway still leaves us intensely unhappy:

jeeprs wrote:Very disappointed there are apologists for the gun lobby on a Dharma forum. "Nowhere is safe", as they say.

I've never owned a gun let alone actually fired anything except a pellet gun at a paper target once or twice, so I'm not a fan of firearms. My point earlier was that in earlier generations people had plenty of guns and yet there were seldom such random attacks like what we see today. So it is not so much about the guns as it is about precisely why some men (note: not women) are turning into homicidal lunatics. What has changed between now and three generations ago?

JKhedrup wrote:Perhaps you are right. Something about the way modern society is operating makes mental health care more of a necessity.

There are more occult reasons perhaps, but most people won't accept this, nor can a secular society envision the possibilities.

Interesting. Care to elaborate?

There have been increased cases of demonic/spirit possession in recent years. This is the case not just in Tibetan medicine which specifically addresses possession, but even the Catholics are reporting increased numbers as well and responding to it by training more exorcists.

The psychologists just call it neurosis, but they don't know what they're dealing with and have no means of identifying let alone remedying it. The public is also under the impression that exorcism is medieval, inefficient, unnecessary and even cruel. Only the government certified psychologists armed with pharmaceuticals are thought to be capable of addressing such mental disorders, and we can see just how well they're doing.

A lot of the old prophetic literature speaks of demonic forces becoming unbound and stronger as time goes on. This is a degenerate age and one of the symptoms of the kaliyuga is wrathful spirits and other such unseen demonic forces growing in strength and ultimately prevailing for a time unfortunately.

From a secular perspective that makes no sense, but the secular way of inefficiently analysing and addressing social problems is perhaps another sign of the kaliyuga: increasing ignorance. In the present day we're pretty sure such demonic forces don't exist and can be safely written off as superstition, though throughout all of human history and to this day people report the existence of such things. A lot of Eurasian cultures didn't write so extensively on demonology and spirits for the sake of interesting fiction.

Outbursts of psychotic behaviour like what we're seeing are probably related to possession.

Konchog1 wrote:I recommend reading Healing the Shame that Binds you. His rage, self-hatred, and shame build up during the decades until one day he snapped and decided to make everyone suffer like he suffered. At any time he could have been derailed by love.

It's our entire society, it's sick and these people are the most ill, but it's the very same problems we all face to varying degrees. These people are likely isolated with their suffering until it boils over, and I think anger by it's very nature wants to lash out. Mental health problems are looked at with such disgrace still, and so people facing them withdrawal instead of seeking help, and we for the most part are collectively responsible. Honestly mental health should be a topic heavily addressed in elementary to high school, kids need to be prepared to deal with their emotions and thoughts, and we really just don't address this problem at all. We wait until people are 'sick', and then try to fix them.

Outbursts of psychotic behaviour like what we're seeing are probably related to possession.

Possession or mental health problems, the solutions are essentially the same though, you fight both with knowledge & compassion.

"We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know." - Albert Einstein

Huseng wrote:Outbursts of psychotic behaviour like what we're seeing are probably related to possession.

Be careful Huseng, what you are suggesting is duality; that the cause of this behavior is caused by another being. This is not the teachings of the Buddha.

We are 100% responsible for our actions, not 50% or 75% or 99%, but 100%. The only reason these events occur is blindness, the individuals inability to observe their mind and body. People keep multiplying their misery until it becomes unbearable and overwhelming. Then they turn to something to put them to sleep, T.V, alcohol, drugs, murder and finally when there is nothing else strong enough to quell the pain suicide.

The way we react to others and the way we fence ourselves off from others needs to change or this behavior is going to increase as it has over the years. We as practicioners of these teachings must develope our compassion and loving kindness to all living beings and spread these teachings so all living beings can come out of their misery. We can't forget or ignore the beings who are at the deepest levels of hell, they need compassion and love most of all.

What do we do?

Practice, practice, practice, and purify the mind we carry. With a lighter load we will rise from the depths of hell and to the higher realms of existence, from here we can trail a line that others can grab onto and pull themselves out of the shit.

I don't think gun control will solve the issue entirely, but it's hard to argue against a causal link between the avaibility of semi-automatic rifles one step or so down from military use

The Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine used in the latest massacre is not a step down from military use. It is military grade period. It is based on the old AR-15 otherwise known as the M-16, a weapon known very well to me personally. This was standard issue in the US military from at least the early 60's to the late 80's. The US Army is phasing it out in favor of more advanced weapons like this line of M4 assault rifles.

These weapons are military grade and have no justification at all in hunting or personal self-defense as they are overwhelming powerful weapons. Their only purpose is to kill people or lay down a murderous field of suppressing fire. They have no other purpose at all. No automatic weapon like this should be available to the public.

I don't think gun control will solve the issue entirely, but it's hard to argue against a causal link between the avaibility of semi-automatic rifles one step or so down from military use

The Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine used in the latest massacre is not a step down from military use. It is military grade period. It is based on the old AR-15 otherwise known as the M-16, a weapon known very well to me personally. This was standard issue in the US military from at least the early 60's to the late 80's. The US Army is phasing it out in favor of more advanced weapons like this line of M4 assault rifles.

These weapons are military grade and have no justification at all in hunting or personal self-defense as they are overwhelming powerful weapons. Their only purpose is to kill people or lay down a murderous field of suppressing fire. They have no other purpose at all. No automatic weapon like this should be available to the public.

Kirt

Yup. And thanks to the NRA and misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, the Bushmaster isavailable at your local Walmart!